August 27, 2001—More than 150,000 British workers suffer from repetitive strain injury (RSI) each year, but only 3,000 managed to win a compensation case in 2000, according to the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC). The TUC reports that British businesses lose 1 billion a year through loss of production and skilled workers. Most compensation awards include only 2,500-7,500 for “pain and suffering” in addition to loss of earnings and the cost of future care. According to the TUC, for every person who wins compensation for RSI, there are another 50 RSI sufferers.
The workers most at risk are those using a keyboard or a mouse, such as typists, journalists, and office workers, as well as those on small assembly lines doing rapid packaging or food processing. A third of all workers (around 8 million) say their working conditions require them to repeat the same sequence of movements “all the time” or “nearly all the time.”
The TUC’s aim is to encourage business to work in partnership with union safety representatives on positive prevention programs and rehabilitation for sufferers, with compensation as the last resort. TUC hopes that better preparation will help more sufferers to obtain fair compensation, while also weeding out cases likely to fail.
The TUC guide, How to win an RSI compensation case by lawyer Nigel Tomkins, is available from the TUC for 50 (5 for trade unions).
